· There won't be any performance improvement in the cpu. Same 32 nm technology. The best 2620 i7 (2.7 ghz) will be slower than the current i7 640m (2.8ghz) but faster than 620m (2.66 ghz) obviously
· A big improvement in the gpu as it is fully redesigned, more graphic cores - more power. HD Graphics 3000 scores 5421 point in 3dmark 06, more than nvidia 320m that scores 4769 but less than 330m gt that scores 6127
· Still 35 watts so they are likely to be introduce in macbook pros.

4 cores proccessors:

· Huge performance improvements. It goes from 45nm to 32nm, but instead of focusing in power saving they have maintained the tdp in all the line from 45w to 55w as in the previous generation, what means that SB has a lot more of transistors and obviously a lot more of power.
· The worse sandy bridge quad core proccesor, 2630qm makes 4840 marks while the best of the previos line 940xm makes 4179!! That's amazing, but that make's me think that why don't they make a 32nm proccessor that performs like the 940xm but with 35watts?? The step between two cores and four cores is now ridiculously big!!
· The best quad core proccessor 2920xm makes 5944!! More than desktop calss i7 975 that makes 5837.

Thanks, this is so far the clearest answer to the question how much of an improvement will the 2 core sb bring on top of the 2 core arrandales that currently power the 15 and 17" MBP. So if what u r saying is correct, the performance gain should be minimal and will mainly come from the GPU that apple will choose to replace the current 330m! Is that right?

The real question is how did the i5 gpu do? That's the one that might replace the 320m, unless Apple puts i7's in the 13in.

Click to expand...

You want to say HD 3000 GPU I guess.
It is very good. Check anandtech.
In games it is as good as a 320M in low settings but in medium and higher settings it shows weaknesses. Still it is more than fast enough for an IGP. Faster than any previous integrated GPU other than the 320M and it offers some features like QuickSync that imo more than make up for what it might fall short in some game settings.

These notebookcheck benches must have some error (if they tested themselves there wouldn't be all the remaining benches missing). SB is definitely going to be a lot faster than Arrendale. It is the same difference as Clarkdale vs Sandy Bridge i3. And you can compare those at Anandtech at the same clocks but without any Turbo.
I put the numbers in Excel and commputed some means.
SB clock for clock increases over Arrendale
are about
30% in compression like zip,rar, 7z
20% in games
15% in raytracing benches
10% in video stuff
10% in general synthetic benches.

That is quite I a bit of difference and if you add Quicksync the video 10% suddenly changes to something in the region of 250% at least for standard encodes.

It doesn't matter if SB is still 32nm because it uses a brand new architecture. Saying there will be no performance gains in the dual cores is completely and utterly wrong.

Click to expand...

The million dollar question is if the gain is in line with the past: Santa rosa to penryn, penryn to arrandale or is there is a substantial leap. Anand says the gains on the quad sb are revolutionary. As the OP mentions the hype so far concerns the quads. I'm curious to see what the dual cores will do!

About the feasibility of quads in 15"/17" MBPs.
TDP isn't everything.
Leaving out the 55W extreme quads, we had 45W 45nm clarksfield quads in fall 2009 and we have 45W 32nm sandy bridge quads now. Apparently the same TDP. But if you look at Anandtech tests, battery life is DRAMATICALLY improved.

Let's assume for a moment that Apple avoided clarksfield in the 17" only because of poor battery life and NOT just for the theoric TDP figure. If this is the case, even if "still" 45W
on paper, the sandy bridge quads could make it to the 17" and even 15".

The mobile Quads are so great because you can finally have decent battery life too and they made a quite big jump in clock rate compared to the old Quads but clock for clock they are not that much better.

The dual cores are almost at the same clocks but with the big change of finally also a true on die memory controller.
Just check my numbers the rest you can calculate on your own with clock speeds. My numbers aren't guesses I took them from here.
I just extracted some useful compressed info from all those benches where some are more useful than others.

about the feasibility of quads in 15"/17" mbps.
Tdp isn't everything.
Leaving out the 55w extreme quads, we had 45w 45nm clarksfield quads in fall 2009 and we have 45w 32nm sandy bridge quads now. Apparently the same tdp. But if you look at anandtech tests, battery life is dramatically improved.

let's assume for a moment that apple avoided clarksfield in the 17" only because of poor battery life and not just for the theoric tdp figure. If this is the case, even if "still" 45w
on paper, the sandy bridge quads could make it to the 17" and even 15".

about the feasibility of quads in 15"/17" mbps.
Tdp isn't everything.
Leaving out the 55w extreme quads, we had 45w 45nm clarksfield quads in fall 2009 and we have 45w 32nm sandy bridge quads now. Apparently the same tdp. But if you look at anandtech tests, battery life is dramatically improved.

let's assume for a moment that apple avoided clarksfield in the 17" only because of poor battery life and not just for the theoric tdp figure. If this is the case, even if "still" 45w
on paper, the sandy bridge quads could make it to the 17" and even 15".

So what you are saying is if you were to take the current i5 MBP and compare it to the upcoming dual core i5 SB, there would be minimal performance difference except for stuff to do with GPU as the SB would be fused with something better than the 320m?

So what you are saying is if you were to take the current i5 MBP and compare it to the upcoming dual core i5 SB, there would be minimal performance difference except for stuff to do with GPU as the SB would be fused with something better than the 320m?

Click to expand...

320m is still faster than the GPU Sandy Bridge comes with... Barely, but it's still faster.

Staff Member

About the feasibility of quads in 15"/17" MBPs.
TDP isn't everything.
Leaving out the 55W extreme quads, we had 45W 45nm clarksfield quads in fall 2009 and we have 45W 32nm sandy bridge quads now. Apparently the same TDP. But if you look at Anandtech tests, battery life is DRAMATICALLY improved.

Let's assume for a moment that Apple avoided clarksfield in the 17" only because of poor battery life and NOT just for the theoric TDP figure. If this is the case, even if "still" 45W
on paper, the sandy bridge quads could make it to the 17" and even 15".

Click to expand...

And Clarksfield did not have an IGP so it would have required a discrete GPU 24/7. Battery life would take a huge hit because of that and more heat would be produced all the time too.

Also, in 2008 and 2009, we had 35W CPU and 9400M/9600M GT combo. 9400M, which is the chipset as well has TDP of 12W so without the discrete GPU, the maximum TDP is 47W (not including displays, HDs and stuff). Quad SB has TDP of 45W and then add 3.9W for chipset (HM65). The total will be 48.9W, only 1.9W more than what we have had in the past.

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